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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26995375">Orison</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarigoldVance/pseuds/MarigoldVance'>MarigoldVance</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Hobbit - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(entirely made up) Religion, (if i missed a tag let me know), (made up) Science, Alternate Universe - Sci-fi, Androids/Cyborgs, Durincest, Dystopia, Human, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Character Death, Mystery, Technology, War</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:01:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,547</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26995375</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarigoldVance/pseuds/MarigoldVance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The world hasn’t always been broken. There was a time, long ago, when people could believe anything they wanted, and it didn’t matter. </p><p>But that ended in the inferno they call "The Great Cleansing."</p><p>Now, Kíli is forced to travel back to where it all started in order to find something - <i>anything</i> - to help his people overcome the hell that they endure. Before things get underway, however, something is returned to Kíli that he thought lost to him forever; something that, despite its differences, seems too good to be true...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fíli/Kíli (Tolkien)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>GatheringFiki - Durin's Day 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Orison</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinigami714/gifts">shinigami714</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <span class="small">this. got so much more involved than i was prepared for. (இ௦இ)</span>
</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <span class="small">so, fact: this is the result of binging Raised by Wolves while scrolling through certain artwork (<a href="https://shinigami714.tumblr.com/post/45812637920/soive-been-thinking-about-filikili-a-lot">1</a>, <a href="https://shinigami714.tumblr.com/post/129370265646/91-apocalypse-au-going-for-physical-goodies">2</a>, <a href="https://shinigami714.tumblr.com/post/154530270531/day-2-of-the-12-days-of-christmas-for">3</a>) plus trying to come up with a plot for the <a href="https://gatheringfiki.tumblr.com/post/632218330694074368/happy-durins-day-everyone-you-are-ok-to-post">DDGE</a>, all while theorizing wtf is going on in the show (it's nothing like what's happening in this fic, just fyi 😂).</span>
</p><p>
  <span class="small">*<i>releases into the world</i>* hands and legs inside the ride, kiddies!</span>
</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>◟◌◝</p><p>
  <em>Those who deny Him cannot be vessels of His love, for their hearts are too filled with evil. Listen not to their deceit. Instead, purge the children of Morgoth from the earth so that they would slither back behind the Walls of Night. </em>
</p><p>◟◌◝</p><p>            Kíli’s arms buzzed, the static from the interactive holographic controls display prickling his skin from fingertips to elbows, where the sleeves of his thin grey henley ended. The lander glided lower, continuing its slick stream ahead through the crevice. It was tricky, flying evenly in such a tight space, but Kíli would manage.</p><p>On either side of the lander, stretching into the clouds, were the craggy jaws of The Lonely Mountain. A place he’d heard his parents and uncles talk about when he was boy. It didn’t look or feel as magnificent as they used to claim, their memories clearly tinted rose with nostalgia.</p><p>In reality, it was bleak and grey and toothy, and about as welcoming as a graveyard.</p><p>Kíli kept the nose of the lander aimed for the glow expanding ahead and increased his speed by a fraction, the creeping sensation of claustrophobia at his back urging him on. It was something he’d never experienced in all his years at the helm of a flight craft, no matter how treacherous the path.</p><p>It had to be that place. The echoes of time haunted the stone, crowded Kíli’s mind as much as the rock cinched around the lander.</p><p>When the mountain spat him out, it was into empty air and the stomach-flipping giddiness of a sharp drop. He let the lander plummet, taking a moment to find and input the coordinates he’d uploaded into the network earlier. Kíli skimmed and tapped through the landing procedures, returning to the flight controls display within feet of making impact with the ground. The lander halted and then cut a clean streak forward in the same instant, hurtling across the wide-open terrain. </p><p>Kíli scanned the imbedded screen on the panel to his left and double-checked the topographical map of the area. As he did, the craft began ticking through its descent protocols despite still being in transit. The lander tucked its stubby fins and antennas into its body and became the shape of a front-laying egg with a concave stomach.</p><p>Kíli didn’t bat an eye, had calculated everything to the fifteenth decimal, had timed it just right. The lander decreased speed exponentially in a very short span until it stopped abruptly into a hover. Kíli eased the lander down in a cloud of dust lifted by its propulsors, punched in the set of standby commands and hibernated the onboard computer. The holographic controls display vanished in a snap into the ether, taking most of the light with it.</p><p>The lander was a cramped replica of Valaric engineering. The Valaric used them to deploy four-person Burst Teams, with room at the fore for one pilot. The interior was open, the cabin and cockpit one in the same, the control panel fitted around the pilot’s chair in a U shape. It was equipped with navigations, defensive and basic offensive systems, built for stealth and speed; to carry combat personnel into enemy territory and nothing more.</p><p>The resistance that Kíli was a member of found a lot of satisfaction in using it for the simpler purpose of recon, usually sent in pairs. Tonight, however, Kíli was agitated and his mother had decided it would be best if he went alone. No one had argued.</p><p>The control panel started to collapse its wings and straighten to fit the width of the fuselage, whirring a mechanical noise as it retreated into the nose of the craft. At the back of the craft, the hatch hissed and began to yawn open by slow degrees. As the machines went about their idling pre-sets, Kíli was up and pivoting around the pilot’s chair. He ducked slightly to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling and walked down the aisle toward the hatch.</p><p>Set abreast on either side of the aisle were bench seats with box-storage space beneath, presently only containing a first-aid kit, some blankets and a supply of protein bars and water bottles.</p><p>Kíli wasn’t expected to stay longer than the night and wouldn’t find much use in the provisions.</p><p>He grabbed his pack and his gun from one of the bench seats, neither of which he’d bothered to secure before takeoff. He dethatched the scope and slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans, slung the strap of the Black Arrow sniper crossways over his chest, hoisted his pack over the opposite shoulder; a series of competent motions all while he continued to debark.</p><p>Before the lip of the ramp closed the last few inches to the ground, Kíli stepped off and marched with purpose toward the outcrop he’d chosen for his post. It jutted up from the earth some paces away, stood on a small incline that offered an unobstructed view of Erebor’s south-facing gate.</p><p>Kíli heaved a sigh and dropped his pack, propped his gun against the rock and settled in for a long night of watching.</p><p>◍</p><p>Two hours later, Kíli blew a raspberry and slumped further into himself, bored out of his mind. He picked up and tossed bits of gravel, listened to them clink off one in the row of empty glass bottles he’d brought with him to set up on top of a low boulder. He repeated the motion: <em>pink</em>.    <em>pink.</em>    <em>pink</em>.</p><p>A palmful of gravel bits later, the bottle hit the ground with a <em>chink</em> and a hollow roll.</p><p>Kíli whooped dismally.</p><p>Around him, the night was still, soundless apart from the bass-hum of the electrical current vibrating through the mithrillic wall that split the landscape. Hate them as he did, Kíli had to give the Valaric credit. Its construction was impressive, the wall’s smooth, white surface gleaming against the muted grey of everything else. He imagined the city inside was as clean and cold as everything else the Valaric built.</p><p>Above, the sky was the color of decay, the troposphere so saturated with pollution that the heavenly bodies floating beyond were hardly visible. Below, a field of dry tallgrass stretched between Kíli’s raised outcrop and the wall. Through the center of the field, a flickering yellow-gold river took in and let out, breathing in tandem with the swell of the hot breeze.</p><p>Fireflies.</p><p>They were a rare sight where Kíli was from, one that had him waxing philosophic for about twenty minutes when he’d first sat down but that he quickly lost interest in the longer the fireflies went without doing much besides bob and blink lazily.</p><p>Fuck, he had <em>hours</em> left: Sitting and watching and watching and sitting and maybe getting up once or twice to piss.</p><p>He oscillated a ball of air between his cheeks, pursed and pressed his lips, clacked his teeth together, drummed a rhythm on his legs. Finding ways to keep himself busy when he was alone was—</p><p><em>            pink</em>.</p><p>            A weary huff.</p><p>            The crunch of gravel beneath the weight of a shifting body.</p><p>—a challenge, to say the least.</p><p>The hum of the wall’s defenses was working against him, acting like white noise that lulled him into a light doze if he didn’t find something to do. He ran a hand through his hair, fingers snagging on his crown and pulling strands from the sloppy bun he had it tied in. Suddenly, he felt angry. So angry. The kind of anger that made the whole body vibrate as it licked under the skin like a living thing.</p><p>It was dangerous to let his mind wander on a good day. Tonight was the worst. Kíli normally made the effort to avoid the dark fissures between his thoughts and navigate away from the phantom touches he felt against his cheek; a gentle graze against his lips, a warm pressure at his nape—</p><p>Kíli jerked himself alert for the fifth time in under an hour, scrambling for more bits of gravel.</p><p><em>            pink.</em>    <em>pink.</em>    <em>pink. pink. pink. KSHHHK.</em></p><p>The last bottle broke with a smash, the violent momentum behind Kíli’s swing shooting the gravel through it like a bullet.</p><p>            “<strong><em>Fuck</em></strong>!”</p><p>He fell back, eyes stinging, face tight in defeat, and scrubbed his face like it would erase what he was trying to forget.</p><p>He wasn’t sure if he was grateful to have been allowed to come alone anymore.</p><p>◍</p><p>Awhile later, a lightning bolt shot through Kíli’s brain.</p><p>“Anything?” The voice crackled sharply.</p><p>He coughed a punched-out noise, slammed a hand over his chest. It took a moment for the shock to subside and he could lift his hand to his earpiece and press the receiver.</p><p>            “Nothing.”</p><p>            “You okay? You sound winded.”</p><p>            “’m Fine. Trying to come up with a way for you to give me a soft warning before piercing my bloody eardrum…”</p><p>Allya chortled and Kíli heard her smack the surface of her workstation all those miles away, obviously pleased with herself.</p><p>            “Can’t really do much about that, I’m afraid.” She said, the shrug implied in her tone.</p><p>Kíli liked Allya. She was good company despite her propensity to tap dance on the line between cheek and insult. Allya had been with them since childhood and had clawed her way savagely up the ranks until she sat at the head of the command center. She was a tech prodigy, a genius at analyzing and hacking networks; could read code like third grade English and, along with her best friend and colleague, Danny – a laidback, charming guy whose easy, dimpled smile was infectious – was able to reengineer a lot of the Valaric tech they procured on the battlefield. Their most notable achievement had been reprogramming a Valaric combat droid.</p><p>What Kíli disliked (strongly) about Allya was her lack of empathy for the recon agents’ ears when she checked in.</p><p>Kíli lifted his scope to his eye and squinted through the lens to confirm that nothing had indeed happened while his mind had drifted. Rapid, purposeful clacking filled the line as Allya rerouted her systems to sync with his lander’s frequency, picking through that night’s data.</p><p>            “<em>Wow</em>.” She said and then gave a long, unapologetic whistle, “No movement at all, ‘ey?”</p><p>            “Even the bugs are bored enough to see how close they can get.” Kíli remarked offhand, referring to the empty band of space between the wall and the perimeter of the electric field that fell several feet outside of it. “Is <em>anything</em> going on?”</p><p>            “Nah. You’re the only one out tonight aside from SR.”</p><p>            “Seriously?”</p><p>            “Wuddid’you think?”</p><p>            “Dunno. Something else, I guess.”</p><p>            “Pfft, what, hoping to get yourself blown up?”       </p><p>Kíli scoffed and scanned the length of the wall, relaying what he saw to Allya as he went.</p><p>The gun turrets were disarmed, their bulky heads hung, barrels to the ground. The few Valaric guards dotting the wall’s battlement ambled from one end of their station to the other, sometimes pausing to have a conversation with their neighbor. Kíli’s gaze caught and lingered on one of them, his helmet off and focale pulled down under his chin to expose his face. Blond hair curled sweetly around his cheeks and his clear blue eyes glittered; so familiar, so much like—</p><p>Kíli swallowed and moved on. </p><p>Visually, all was quiet.</p><p>He lowered his scope to examine his cuff. He swiped the touchscreen, scrolled quickly through the data; no elevation or decrease in any readings. Nothing was happening.</p><p>            “Another fun Tuesday.” Kíli remarked, leaning back against the rock in a languid display of limbs.</p><p>There was a busy pause, Allya recording the update, type-type-typing, interrupted by a tepid, “You, uhm, excited to go home? Get away from things for awhile?”</p><p>Kíli debated for a beat whether or not he wanted to answer. He finally decided to admit, “I asked for an extension.”</p><p>The ensuing silence was rich with something that teetered between righteous indignation and concern, “You’re joking. Kíli, it’s been a year. A <em>year</em> and they’ve let you do what you wanted because—damn. I get it okay? But you need a break before you run yourself stupid and <em>do</em> actually end up getting yourself killed!”</p><p>            “I don’t know what you want me to say.” Kíli bit back, “I’m <em>fine</em>.”</p><p>He didn’t want to sound harsh, but he was tired of having to deflect the concern of those who had no business being concerned anyway. Because, he was. <strong>Fine</strong>.</p><p>            “Yeah, you’re always “fine” aren’t you?” The airquotes and eyeroll were loud and judgy and Kíli pointedly ignored them. Allya said it like Kíli didn’t know exactly what his damage was, who it affected… “Get real; a year, Kee, twelve months and nothing’s come of it except you losing more and more of yourself to some misguided, ballsed up fantasy! I mean, <em>fucking he</em>—!!”</p><p>There was a scuffle at the end of the line followed by the dull clap of skin on leather. Kíli didn’t smirk, though it was a near thing, relieved as he was for an end to the discussion. A reprimand and another smack (“<em>language!</em>”) dissolved the serrated heat of the argument and Kíli felt himself loosen almost completely.</p><p>            “Fucking bruta—ow! Alright! I’m sorry!” Another series of smacks and then tense silence until the airy snick of a door. Allya exhaled in relief.</p><p>            “She’s crazy. Seriously, crazy. I don’t understand why your mum insists we keep her.”</p><p>            “She’s the Mozart of radios.” Kíli said matter-of-factly, quoting something he’d heard his mother say.</p><p>Lobelia was the cousin of their chief medical research specialist who treated everyone as if they were misbehaved children. She was also completely unhinged. Though Kíli couldn’t really blame her. He’d been there to dismantle and bury the Valaric’s message. It had been sick and awful, the bodies flayed and hanged meters outside of the resistance’s camp, Lobelia’s husband and two grown sons among them.</p><p>            “Are you listening to me?”</p><p>            “Nope.” Kíli answered bluntly, popping the ‘p’.</p><p>Allya groaned. “Such an ass. I—hold on. What–what the hell … ?”</p><p>The edge in Allya’s voice made Kíli jerk upright. His body carried fluidly through the motion; curling all the way forward, left foot taking his weight. He kneeled in a defensive crouch and grabbed his Black Arrow from where it was propped against the rock beside him. His finger itched where he held it, hooked over the trigger.</p><p>            “Al?”</p><p>He heard her fingers flying over the keyboard.</p><p>            “There’s something moving.” Allya said, the uptick on the last word made it sound like a question. She was confused which never meant anything good. She muttered to herself, probably skimming through the information on the computer she used like an extension of herself. “Kíli!”</p><p>            “<em>What</em>!?”</p><p>He peered through his scope to find more nothing going on in front of him. No movement, no alarms, nothing to validate Allya’s panic at the other end of the line. Just guards as bored as Kíli had been, drifting along the battlements.</p><p>            “I’ve used the lander’s radar.” Allya explained. “Downloading the feed. Check your cuff, for fuck’s sake!”</p><p>Kíli did.</p><p>A live blueprint of the area appeared on the screen. It showed a solid white arc – the wall – and the simple, digital outlines of the closest city structures behind it. On top of the arc were red dots; heat signatures identifying more guards than Kíli had seen patrolling, the majority in stationary clumps, even distances apart. The crude technology didn’t accommodate levels, so Kíli wasn’t sure if the extra guards were together or if they were separated by floors.</p><p>And — <em>oh, </em>what? — a single orange-yellow dot moving fast, drifting away from the wall, headed in Kíli’s direction. Kíli’s head snapped up and he looked through his scope. Again, nothing.</p><p>            “Is it in the catacombs?” That ran under Erebor. They had a map they could overlay, Kíli was sure.</p><p>            “Already thought of that.” Allya gruffed, offended, and kept doing whatever she was doing on her computer. “The answer is <em>no</em>. The catacombs don’t come out that far.”</p><p>Kíli’s brows pinched. “Then where the fuck is it?”</p><p>            “It’s headed straight for you!”</p><p>            “Yeah, I get it, but I can’t shoot what I can’t see, Al!” Kíli clipped his scope to his Black Arrow and assumed his stance anyway. If he was going to get torn to shreds by new Valaric tech, he was sure as fuck taking it down with him.</p><p>Muscles taut and mind sharp, Kíli steeled himself. He squinted through the lens as a breeze rustled the brittle tallgrass, bending it into a sheet that murkily reflected the white glow of the wall. Kíli waited a beat, another, anticipation spiking as it always did in the seconds leading up to a skirmish, the fear of death barely an afterthought anymore.</p><p>            “It stopped.” Allya informed.</p><p>Time slowed to a crawl; sounds and sensations receded only to come crashing back with the force of a compact explosion in the same second. Dirt and debris erupted from a small plot at Kíli’s twelve o’clock, scant feet beyond the edge of the electric field. Kíli balked, looking up from his scope to gauge the distance from himself more accurately.</p><p>            “What is it?” Allya demanded in his ear.</p><p>            “I don’t see anything. A malfunctioning mine, maybe?”</p><p>            “A malfunctioning mine that decided to take a stroll?” Allya chaffed. “You’re not that dumb, Brown Eyes, think again.”</p><p>            “Well, unless it moves at the speed of sound or is invisible, Al, I still don’t. see. anything.”</p><p>Meanwhile, during their back and forth, there was a commotion on the battlements. Faint shouting could be heard among the guards as they arranged themselves for a strike, darting to the gun turrets, ducking under the armored hoods and heaving them into position. The red eyes of each unit’s AI burned against the black metal as they whirred to life; menacing gargoyles set to destroy. </p><p>            “Uh, Al?”</p><p>            “Yeah?”</p><p>            “I don’t think whatever it is, it’s Valaric.”</p><p>Allya must have been watching through the lander’s video stream because, “I’m getting that impression too, yeah.” </p><p>Tense silence settled along with the dust before Kíli saw hands reach out of the ground and find purchase on the mound of rubble caused by the blowback. Bulky, human-looking arms pulled broad shoulders from the hole the explosion made, then a wide back, narrow hips, convex thighs, corded legs. A matted cowl of smut-dirty hair cast any definitive features above the shoulders in shadow. </p><p>            “Do you have eyes on it?”</p><p>Kíli stuttered, “I. Yeah, it. Looks like a man.”</p><p>            “A man?”</p><p>For the prosperity of accurate information that could be used to save his life, Kíli stated, “A very fit man.”</p><p>            “Are you fucking serious?”</p><p>            “Very.”</p><p>            “Is it droid?”</p><p>Taking up his scope, Kíli saw that the man, if that’s what he was, was getting ready to run.</p><p>            “He’s about to make a move.”</p><p>            “I’m picking up organic signatures but—”</p><p>The man tensed then released, flinging his body forward, muscles bunching like a panther as he launched into a gallop. At the first twitch, the Valaric fired, blitzing strips of land at the man’s ankles in a flurry of ammunition that lifted the dry surface of the ground into clouds. The man dove into the tallgrass, stayed low, desperate to find respite once he cleared the blast radius. Unfortunately, the tallgrass parted in tracks as he darted through it, making his trail easier for the Valaric to follow.</p><p>Kíli was at a loss.</p><p>There’d been no intel of prisoners (there’d be hardly any intel <em>at all</em>, if Kíli was being honest with himself). In fact, as far as they’d known, the Valaric weren’t keen on taking prisoners. Whoever this guy was, he had to be a traitor of the Valaric which made him a friend of the resistance. Or Kíli guessed that was how it worked—</p><p>            “Orders?” Kíli said, bracing himself.</p><p>            “Stand down.”</p><p>            “Al, he’s not Valaric. That makes him one of us.”</p><p>            “No. It doesn’t. Stand down Kíli.” Allya said firmly.</p><p>—Or not.</p><p>Through the lens, Kíli watched the man stumble in such a way that it caused his face to jerk up and Kíli’s reality to implode. Shock, dread, hope coupled with cataclysmic disbelief lanced through him simultaneously, rendering him immobile like the impact of a cryo-grenade.</p><p>His voice stuck in the back of his throat when it pushed out the long since abandoned blasphemy, “<em>Jesus Christ</em>.”</p><p>            “Kíli!? What is it?!”</p><p>Allya’s hysteria knocked Kíli from his daze and, without hesitation, he took up his Black Arrow. With a patience that had been drilled into him, Kíli sought his opening, aiming just above his target. Inhaled, exhaled: He fired, hitting his mark. The gun turret disarmed in a billow of smoke and mechanical sparks, the weapon sagging like a head in prayer.</p><p>Kíli shifted minutely, inhaled, squeezed the trigger and offlined another, the small blisters – practically undetectable – in the weapons’ otherwise sleek armor erupting as he took out the AI motherboards. However, regardless of his expert shooting, there were too many. Kíli wouldn’t be able to disarm them all before the guards got wise and turned their guns on him.</p><p>When the man was close enough to hear him over the roar of discharge, Kíli hastily discarded his Black Arrow and jumped to his feet, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled,</p><p>            “<em>FÍLI!</em>”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>
  <span class="small">i don't know - uh - science. but i tried to know enough that some of this futuristic crazy makes an iota of sense 😅 or at least kinda <i>reads</i> like it does so long as you aren't an aircraft engineer. also, terrain/landscape/geography has been tweaked all over Arda. <b>eg</b>: herein, The Lonely Mountain isn't synonymous with Erebor...</span>
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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